Page 27 - Delaware Lawyer - Fall 2020

forum for resolving business disputes, even during this worldwide crisis. From March 15 to June 15, the Chancellor and Vice Chancellors held 279 audio or video hearings and issued 402 rulings. Masters in Chancery held an addition- al 56 remote hearings and issued 100 rulings.
During that same period, the Superior Court held 308 remote motion hearings and conferences in civil matters and 541 criminal proceedings, includ- ing bail matters, capias returns, viola- tions of probation and sentencings. The Superior Court also issued 161 opinions or orders. The Delaware Supreme Court issued 108 final orders and 10 opinions. The state’s other courts reported similar robust activity during that period.
It is also important to note that during this period — as always — the Delaware courts remained committed to transparency. To assist members of the Bar and to keep the public current on court operations, a dedicated web- page was created to detail the Delaware Judiciary’s response to COVID-19 at https://courts.delaware.gov/aoc/ covid-19, where you can find court statements, emergency orders, admin- istrative directives and other important information, posted in real time. In addition, the Chief Justice conducted several town hall-style video confer- ences to discuss the pandemic and the courts’ reopening plans with both court employees and members of the Bar. (Video of the town hall with the Bar
is available on the courts’ COVID page and at https://youtu.be/xWqgl8V_sn0.) Visitors to the courts’ COVID page can also find links to detailed reports of the Courts Reopening Committee, a group that included judicial officers, court staff, an infectious disease ex- pert, prosecutors, public defenders and other members of the Bar. The com- mittee dedicated thousands of hours to crafting the reopening plan — carefully considering how and when to reopen, looking at other states’ experiences — and then created a detailed roadmap
to safely restart jury trials.
Web metrics showed that the courts’
COVID page — which was linked from all pages on the Delaware Judiciary’s website via a red alert banner on the top of each page — became one of the most visited pages on the courts website within days of its launch in March. The Judiciary continues to update this page on a regular basis, and because each of the entries is dated, the page also serves as a detailed timeline of the Judiciary’s response to the pandemic.
On restarting jury trials, the courts and our partners on the committee reexamined every aspect of jury selec- tion to ensure we were conducting it as safely and efficiently as possible. We redesigned the jury process in each of our three county courthouses as each courthouse presented unique advan- tages and challenges, requiring new procedures for each building to make sure proper health and safety guidelines were maintained. The new plan reduces and, in some cases, eliminates the need for prospective jurors to stand in line or gather or move in large groups through the courthouse. For example, in the Leonard L. Williams Justice Center in Wilmington, 200 of the 260 chairs that had been in the jury assembly room were removed in order to allow the proper
FALL 2020 DELAWARE LAWYER 25
SEAN O’SULLIVAN